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"The Person I'm Sharing With You Now"Is Stephen Glass really sorry?

By Virginia HeffernanPosted Monday, May 12, 2003, at 5:11 PM ET

He had me at "around the perimeter." Right there—around the escalator bank in the brassy lobby of a building in Bethesda, Md.—is where the writer Stephen Glass once told Charles Lane, his former boss at the New Republic, that tables had been arranged for a conference of computer hackers that never happened.

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These three words represented the abject, Hail-Mary end of a marvelous series of lies that Glass had told Lane, and his many readers, about sundry follies that had not in fact gone on in the world of politics, business, and technology. He had me with that phrase because the mortification of being brought up so short—having yourself unveiled as a thoroughgoing liar in an instant, on the studied word "perimeter" no less—must have been a near-death experience. I guess he had it coming, but I bet it was hell. It was May 1998, and Glass was caught.

Penitent, weary, Glass surveyed the Bethesda lobby on 60 Minutes (CBS, 7 p.m. ET) last night. Having completed a five-year course of therapy since his unmaking, Glass admitted to correspondent Steve Kroft, "I think it's impossible to have a conference here."

Along with a forthcoming novel called The Fabulist, Glass is the author of what 60 Minutes called "one of the greatest journalistic frauds in history." To CBS, this means he made up details, facts, and quotations in "dozens of" colorful stories published in various magazines over a period of two years. The 60 Minutes segment told a sinner's story about temptation, fall, and redemption. And to add intrigue, the producers made sure that Glass' redemption was played for the cameras as a dubious one, since it appears timed to coincide with the publication of his novel.

Glass described to Kroft his first taste of vice, which he got while working on a boring starter story for TNR about a new law in Washington. "I remember thinking, 'If I just had the exact quote that I wanted to make it work, it would be perfect.' And I wrote something on my computer, and then I looked at it, and I let it stand." Thus were born Glass' greatest journalistic fictions: the church of George Herbert Walker Christ, the convention at which Monica Lewinsky condoms were sold, and the tales of lechery by Vernon Jordan and miscellaneous young Republicans.

Glass, it seems, was lying not for a cause—he had no ideological stake in his news-of-the-weird stories—but for love. "I loved the electricity of people liking my stories," he told Kroft. "I wanted them to love the story so they would love me."

But love cost him—peace of mind, self-possession—as he wove a tangled Web site, faked voice mails, and forged faxes to authenticate his stories, placating fact-checkers and other auditors. At last, Lane, growing suspicious after Forbes.com reported a vain effort to pursue a Glass doozy about a 15-year-old hacker-extortionist, asked his writer to take him to the site of the hacker convention. How Glass' knees must have wobbled on the Bethesda stroll, which he tightly re-enacted for the viewers of 60 Minutes.

The camera panned around the lobby, which had in it no oval table, no projection screen, no privacy. "It was definitely not the most likely site for a conference," observed the voice-over.

And then Kroft asked a version of the question friends and colleagues of Glass have likely been asking themselves for years. "Now, is the Stephen Glass in this 60 Minutes interview really Stephen Glass or just another character that he has invented?"

"I know people are going to think that," replied Glass, himself no fool. "And while I know I am not inventing the person I'm sharing with you now, I can't make you believe that. All I can do is continue to behave in a way that earns your trust."

Those whom 60 Minutes interviewed did not seem persuaded by this new Glass agonistes. Leon Wieseltier, the longtime literary editor of the New Republic, called Glass a worm. Lane said he still believed Glass would lie about the weather. Others with whom Glass had worked were said by Kroft to be "cynical about the apology."

But what apology? Though he has said the magic words elsewhere, Glass could never once be heard saying, "I'm sorry" on Sunday's broadcast. But would "I'm sorry" have done the trick? To my eye, the person Glass was sharing with us now seemed persuasively sorry. Why wouldn't he be? That agonizing May day would make anyone sorry. And Glass didn't act defensive on 60 Minutes. He didn't seem pleased with himself. He looked as penitent as the average crook who is said to have shown remorse.

As the camera showed close-up after close-up of Glass' opaque face, however, I wondered what we expected from him and what would certify that he had changed. A level tone of voice, acid self-reproach, vows of future truthfulness, a sustained wail? Or was he supposed to promise to donate the profits from The Fabulist to the Poynter Institute's program for journalistic ethics? Or to a fund for defamed hackers or Vernon Jordan? And would that expiate?

Now that the lies of Stephen Glass, as well as New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, have been so ceremoniously revealed and condemned, what's next? For the time being, the former journalists appear to be sentenced to nothing more than sitting still while the most powerful people in journalism spit, hunting for synonyms for "worm" and "creep." Having failed to censor the well-wrought lies for years, the bosses appear to be set on proving, above all, that they won't be fooled again.

"What you're covering now is contrition as a career move," Wieseltier reproachfully told the CBS newsman, leaving open the pressing question of what, in journalism, contrition as contrition might be.

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Virginia Heffernan is a television critic for The New York Times. Her book, The Underminer, which she wrote with Mike Albo, comes out in February.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Once upon a time I thought that "I'm sorry" was a good response to any sort of critique or correction. I thought to myself (and joked to one of my friends) that I really was sorry that the others weren't happy about how things were. At that time, saying "I'm sorry" didn't mean what it means to me today. Having gone through 10 years of marriage, I've learned that "I'm sorry" doesn't mean what it literally says. It doesn't mean I'm contrite. It doesn't mean I'm apologetic. It doesn't even mean I wish I could go back and do things differently. Instead, it means that NEXT time, if there is a next time, I'll keep the other's wishes in mind more firmly and try to avoid doing something they dislike. Will Mr. Worm be more truthful in future? We really can't tell. I doubt it. I think he's sorry the world wasn't happy about his lies.

--Gamebird

(To reply, click here)

Mr. Glass could demonstrate contrition by getting the hell out of the media -- AND STAYING THERE. He could go teach in ghetto schools, or feed the homeless, or sell shoes, or install carpet. But his decision to become a writer of (avowed) fiction, and to participate in the publicity mill of publication, demonstrates his continued addiction to the approval or at least the attention of the crowd. I'm surprised I find my self feeling so strongly about this, as a modern American of at least average cynicism. But the public reclamation of someone like Glass, or Lewinsky, or Oliver North, or other miserable freaks of their ilk, really sickens me. Why don't they have the decency to go away and leave us alone.

--Arrow

(To reply, click here)

…For myself, I can forgive Glass. The only story of his that impacted me enough to cause me to believe ill of someone incorrectly were his lies about Vernon Jordan and that mistake was rectified (for me) with his unmasking. Like Ms. Heffernan, I believe he may very well be sincere in realizing what he did was wrong and feeling remorse about it. Although I will make no special effort to buy his book or seek out his legal advice, I will wish him well - or at least no malice - as he attempts to put his life back together. What I will not do is ever trust him again. None of us should. That does not mean we have to believe Glass is evil or out to hurt us but his actions at "The New Republic" crossed a line that makes it impossible to take anything he says - certainly as a journalist and probably otherwise as well - purely on his own word. As Lane so eloquently explained in an interview for CBS, "If it was sunny outside and Steve and I were both standing outside in the sun and Steve came to me and said, 'It's a sunny day,' I would immediately go check with two other people to make sure it was a sunny day." If he is sincere, that is what Glass himself will have to understand. We can comprehend what motivated him. We can empathize, even sympathize. However, very few of us will ever trust his word and, as he suggests, only trustworthy actions on his part over a very long time is likely to change that…

--The_Bell

(To reply, click here)

"Contrition as contrition," in journalism, in my view, would be contrition that isn't perfectly timed to coincide with a book release. (For exhibit B in this discussion, see "Brock, David.") The contrition also wouldn't coincide with an attempt to pass the "character & fitness" portion of the NY State bar admission process that Glass hasn't yet passed yet. And, yes, an "I'm sorry" wouldn't hurt, either. Still, I'm inclined to agree that Glass is truly contrite. On the 60 Minutes piece, Steve Croft suggested that Glass's failure to privately apologize to The New Republic was evidence that he wasn't truly sorry. But who at TNR would Glass have contacted in order to make any apology "official?" The entire staff? Only certain editors? The TNR editor during Glass's tenure at the mag has since left. And even if Glass had found an appropriate TNR person to contact, would anyone at TNR have been less incredulous than they were last night on 60 Minutes? I doubt it.

--Pogue615

(To reply, click here)

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